Video gamers worldwide may be risking irreversible hearing loss and/or tinnitus—persistent ringing/buzzing in the ears—finds a systematic review of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.
What evidence there is suggests that the sound levels reported in studies of more than 50,000 people often near, or exceed, permissible safe limits, conclude the researchers.
And given the popularity of these games, greater public health efforts are needed to raise awareness of the potential risks, they urge.
While headphones, earbuds, and music venues have been recognized as sources of potentially unsafe sound levels, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of video games, including e-sports, on hearing loss, say the researchers.
What a dumbass click bait headline.
Has less to do with video games, and more to do with how loudly people are listening to them.
I was in middle school when earbuds came out in the early 2000s and I remember the exact same idiot bait news headlines about ipods, I’m sure there’s a 70’s equivalent for headphones. It seems like journalists think the concept of volume is totally alien to humanity, regardless of time period.
Why is this receiving such hate? I’m one of those affected, and it would make sense that video games were a huge reason why I have such bad ringing in my ears. It should absolutely be taught that playing video games runs the same risks as going to a concert, ear buds, headphones.
I’m confident we have all went to play a game, and not realized that our headset volume had been set to max. Definitely a personal feeling, but I wish someone had said maybe pay better attention before playing video games.
Edit: My point is, I’m one of those dumb people who would not have realized that gaming was on the same level as going to a concert. I could’ve used a nice little reality snap that this articles title gives. I only want to provide a second opinion, and hopefully entice someone else to read the article and give it a chance. We all know many people check comments before reading an article.
Because the issue isn’t the video games fault. Any gamer in danger of damaging their hearing from playing games, is likely in danger of the same damage from listening to music or talking on the phone at high volume, also.
Reasonable people can already figure out that listening to anything too loud is bad for their hearing. This article is a nothing burger, and the title uses fear-mongering/hate bait to get you to read it.
I am glad it is so obvious to you, however I am still thankful that articles like these get a chance to reach those who are unaware.
Because its not a fear monger, it is simply true for anyone unaware.
I can’t even begin to imagine how a person that is capable of reading and comprehending the article as well as hearing sounds would be unaware that LOUD SOUNDS HURT EARS.
Maybe read the actual article then. I say this in a dickish tone, because it is not “simply loud noises” and it makes everyone else sound like an idiot in comparison to you.
I have read the article. It doesn’t suggest that the games themselves are using sounds too loud, only that many gamers listen to them at higher than safe volumes.
Yes, exactly because it is not obvious that this will cause damage to their ears. I’m sorry, im hungry, but what are you trying to argue if you just agreed with me? It is not a hate/fear mongering article if its point is to bring attention to those unaware.
I’m not sure if the original was edited, or if im absolutely bonkers but I swore you used the words hate/fearmongering and not dumbass.
I’ve had tinnitus for decades, and it SUCKS. I’ve always been careful for my hearing, but after a concussion it arrived and never went away.
I play games with most sounds off. I can’t use headphones, wearing them gives me a migraine no matter the volume.
I’ve had hearing tests, seen a specialist. I have no hearing loss, but I do have misaphonia and tinnitus. The combination is pure hell, there is no respite.
I can’t distinguish voices in chats well enough to follow what’s being said if more than one person is talking. It’s even worse online when I can’t lip read to decode what’s being said.
Project your earholes.
Sorry to hear that
Can you drown out the tinnitus with more volume?
Not as a rule, no. I end up with a bigger headache and more ringing.
Huh, What?!
-Artillery men, Rock/Metal bands
I played video games for 22 years: no hearing loss
Practiced bagpipes indoor, big room, a few times: like 30dB hearing loss.
Idk
bagpipes are the loudest thing I’ve ever experienced, those things are a silent killer
Now think of the damage you could’ve caused the rest of us!
We’re saved!
Who use earbuds or those big heaphones past like 12 years old lol
Adukts sit in their car in silence
🤨
I have Windows volume mixer open all the time. I have developed a habit of pulling the volume down to 10-15% on every new window/app that I open because I hate sudden unstoppable loudness.
Imagine if you could do it for the entire system!
Lol. I still want my loudness ceiling to be loud, which is why I leave my speakers/headphones/system volume turned up. However, I like it when it’s on my terms, so I manually turn down specific programs.
Check an app called ear trumpet. It gives you way finer control over the volume of everything
Mate i just mute and make the sounds in my head
It would be nice if there was a pre-game audio slider like some games have brightness sliders.
Like volume mixer in windows?
CounterStrike and all it’s variations was always nuts with this to me, ‘I have the voltume up to hear the footsteps bro’ -KACHOW- “BUT THE HOUSE IS SHAKING” ‘yeah this noob has an AWP, so of course I also have an mmhph’ -THE AUDIENCE IS NOW DEEEF-
As it should be #DynamicRangeIsLife
The first HL had surprisingly good sound with great dunamic range. HL2 felt wimpy, guns never had the same oomph to them.
One of the reasons I stopped playing, does 2 have a loudness range option? Once I discovered that option on my tv I never got jumpscared by an explosion ever again just because I had the volume up to listen to a conversation.
Windows has a compression mode called Loudness Equalization built in
HUH, WHAT DID YOU SAY?
No worries for me, I’ve had tinnitus for over 40 years, pretty sure it’s neurological for me, not hearing related.
Shit man I’ve been suffering from hearing loss for like 20 years (partially due to infections and the rest is listening to music with headphones at high volumes), and tinnitus for at least 12.
I’m ahead of the curve. 😎
Volume sliders never sound linear to me. I also keep them fairly low. This means that each individual step is surprisingly large in volume difference. I don’t get people who go to max volume-- doesn’t it hurt your ears? My laptop stays on 10-20% and some applications are turned down from that even further (TF2 is comically low).
Volume sliders never sound linear to me
Ironically that is because (with very few exceptions) every application from OS-s to streaming service webapps to games to mediaplayers uses linear volume slider. Human hearing is logarithmic.
The way typical volume slider works is multiplying the audio sample values with a coefficient that is ≤1. Ie, if you set volume to 50% the input is multiplied by 0.5 and as a result the signal voltage level on the analog output to your headphone or loudspeaker drivers is halved. The kicker—halving the voltage is just 6 dB less volume. This is why if you have sensitive headphones (or big, powerful speakers) you find that you have to keep the volume slider in your OS at 10% or even lower to not blast your ears off. And why the upper half of volume sliders is completely useless.
I have an unconventional speaker setup that makes classical analog volume control completely impractical. Since said setup has the maximum sound pressure level output of around 110 dB at full scale digital input, I have to keep the OS volume slider at 30% and in-app volume sliders at around 20%, resulting the total multiplier of 0.06 (or about -26dB full scale) to have comfortable volume levels. Only exception is Elite: Dangerous; with sound set to full dynamic range I can keep the main volume slider at maximum and enjoy glorious dynamics. Youtube is also surprisingly reasonable, probably because they normalize to -14dB LUTS or something similar.
I wonder if linux has a logarithmic sound driver… might tempt me to the dark side!
Are you using Bluetooth headphones?
If so, you might want to look into turning off bluetooth absolute volume. It’s supposed to keep volume syncronised between your bluetooth device and your phone/laptop/etc, but some headphones don’t seem to support it, wich can end up with them setting their internal volume to max.
No, they’re wired, although weirdly they can desync (per-ear!) after a restart until you change the volume again. Thanks for the tip though :)
Actually while I’m here, do you know how to turn off headphone media controls? My headphones don’t have it but when I move my aux cord around windows thinks they’re sending commands and likes to pause my videos >:(
I’ve had tinnitus since my earliest memories. Will I get tinnitus on my tinnitus? Tinnitus squared?
It might alloy into bronzitus if you’re not careful.
Multi tonal tinnitus is a real thing.
Source: My right ear has two tones, and the left ear has different from the right two.
I have a general tone (or set of tones I guess) which is around equal in both ears usually. But they will sometimes just change for a while, which is extremely jarring since generally I do get used to the constant sound that suddenly being consciously aware of it generally distracts from whatever else is going on. Sometimes that change only happens in one ear, or at least starts in one ear.
Since I’ve had this forever, I actually thought it was normal. Until I guess one day my teacher at school ran out of material, or had a hangover and just wanted us quiet. So, asked us all to be quiet and start to talk about the quietest things people could hear. Others heard a few things I could hear. Sounds in the school building. Then people were talking about hearing traffic on the street nearby and other things I just couldn’t hear at all. At that point I realised, just me hearing this sound then.
I’m probably quite lucky in that the noise floor for me isn’t terrible. Only at night when trying to sleep does it become a problem.
WHAT!?
Jokes on them! I don’t even need to worry about video games doing it to me. I’ve already got some minor hearing loss in one ear from a history of childhood ear infections. That, and my other ear is probably gonna end up with hearing loss from how loud I listen to music. Games ain’t got nothing on my music listening habit!
Noise cancelling headphones give me tinnitus but it’s totally worth it to live without noise.
You’d take no crowd noises over a constant ringing no matter how silent everything else gets?
Please take me tinnitus
I don’t hear any ringing when I wear the headphones, it’s only quiet times that it’s noticeable. My motivation is largely due to ADHD, I’m more sensitive to noise than average and it’s a major source of distraction for me. Open offices in particular are horrible for productivity. Driving is also way less fatiguing without road noise.
